Sunday, 31 March 2013

This week we began the week with 'Of Popes and Prelates' by Andrew Johnson who brought us the spectacle of the swearing on of the Archbishop of Canterbury and reminded us of the mismatch between the teachings of the the Christian church and its actual practice. As Andrew says: 'A camel and/ the eye of a needle/ spring to mind.'

Then, skipping Tuesday, we went on to Wednesday and 'Miss Plath's Father Calls Sylvia for School' by regular, Noel Loftus. A response to a story about the perils of social networking sites, this was a very clever piece that challenged us to spot the Plath allusions. Well done, Noel. It was an original idea and skillfully executed.

Thursday brought us Carolyn Cornthwaite's 'If The World Ends..' which was, as one of our readers observed, 'a powerfully written poem'. Carolyn reminds us - and, sadly, it seems that world does need to be reminded - that the problems of rape and sexual violence against women cannot be addressed by inflicting restrictive and punitive measures on the victim. If you have not yet read this poem I suggest that you do so immediately.

Friday brought us back to Noel Loftus with Sundowning and the cuts to be made to elder care in Ireland. Generally speaking, we try to restrict individual poets to one poem per week. Rules are made to be broken, though, and this week we did exactly that.

Finally, on Saturday, we closed the week's offerings with Damien Healey's 'Rael Pale' which opens with the stark and powerful line 'Peace is just a word without actions' and brings us the affecting image of 'a father holding his lifeless son'. On behalf of us all here at Poetry24 I would like to thank all the above contributors for their continued support. Please, everyone, do continue to submit your work. (You can find the full guidelines here.) We try to respond within a two week period but sometimes this is difficult so we don't mind at all if you query. Here's wishing you sunshine and chocolate. Best wishes from Abi

Saturday, 30 March 2013

Peace is just a word without actions,No matter what intentions are behind it.We have heard it all before behind the whimper of mothers crying.It’s been seen in the pitiful pleas of a father holding his lifeless son.The differences between the two of us,Our beliefs and a sheet of skin.Vying for a piece of barren, useless land,Killing our neighbors over a two-bit piece of real estate.Both brought up to believe each other is wrong,Skewed history and patriotic songs taught to the innocent masses.One supported by a very big brother,The other, friends with misled individuals.But everyone agrees that if we do not find a solution,All that will be left are real pale corpses on the barren streets of our territories.

Damien Healy is from Dublin, Ireland but has been living in Osaka, Japan for the past twenty years. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics and teaches English at university. He loves poetry about nature and has recently found the time and energy to read and write some. He has been published in The Ofipress and Spinozablue.

‘Things like this happen every day and nothing will be changed. Only if the world ends will anything change.’

Later, when you stagger beneath palms. Gaze at stars.Inhaleon salted air swept up in foamy sea.You’ll wonder at this beauty, spreadbefore your feet. Alreadyviolatedby three others and declare,‘So – why not, also, me?’

When the roar of surf against the beach battersyour eardrums, you’ll try to halt herroarof pain. Leading you on.Silk, sari, sensuous. Revealing breasts and hips and brokenjawwhere three fists, flung. Driven fucking crazy with her sexystrutting home – alone – from college or the call centre.

They all do It.Travel after dark. After 6pm.(Your sister wouldn’t)Dress like that. Provocative. Asking for It.And, as golden sand thrustsbetween your toes, you’ll ponder, RAPE:a big, big problem. For women.Who ask for It. Wearing short and sexy dresses.

When you think of shadows, of men gathered beyondthe veilof light that bathed the street, you’ll recall she beggedfor It. And screams and cries and howlsmean nothing when a woman travels lateat night – well – after seven.(Your sister wouldn’t)get a job or think she’s safe or want equality.

Or shiny cars and huge bank balancesrammedbetween bruised and battered legs.Or dress like that, or walk the streets, or go to work,or dream ofsafety, in numbers, whenyou felt threatened by this woman who, so evidently,Asked for It.

Carolyn writes poetry sporadically or relentlessly (depending on the season) and is influenced by travel, former careers and people watching. She dreams of Booker Prizes and a life in France. @carolyn_corny

Sunday, 24 March 2013

We began this week with Kellie Doherty who wrote about Ramey Smyth who completed the Iditarod Trail to Nome, Alaska, in 2 hours, 19 minutes in her poem Alaskan Adventure. Like the subject matter, it was very quick-paced with the two-word lines that gave a rhythmic feeling to the actual sense of the arduous journey.

On Tuesday we had Bull in a China Shop by Philip Johnson. This short, but powerful, poem talks about Archbishop Welby putting pressure on Ian Duncan Smith for the harsh and unfair welfare reforms. The final line: “the poor are paying off the national debt / while the tories pay off the rich” we particularly powerful.

What Happens in Conclave Stays in Conclave by Gwen Seabourne was a satirical look at the newly elected Pope, Francis I. The comic tone of: “Or maybe they'll decide it's better / to go for the chap with the biggest biretta” was a key point of the poem, indicating a kind of farce that goes with the Papel.

On Thursday Niamh Hill wrote School’s Out. This was an angry look at MP Michael Gove’s proposed national curriculum which would actually damage children’s education, making them learn “endless lists of spelling, facts and rules.” I got a sense of irony from this piece when Niamh wrote: “Dates, and places and verse / will be drummed into us / til we are a nation of parrots / no ability to think, or act.”

On Saturday, Mark Brophy's The Laughing Hangman reminded us of the plight of the poor and the vulnerable and also of the shameful failure of the party that should represent them. There is one line I want to quote from this poem because it should prompt the rest of us to action: "the only way to prove/ you're incapacitated is to die while you're at work."

Please sumbit your new-based poems to poetry24@hotmail.com and include the title of your poem in the subject. We love hearing from you. Have a good week.

Thursday, 21 March 2013

He wants us to sit in rowslike Victorian school children, but we won't learn about themwhile we are young,instead we will studyevents we are not old enoughto understand, they happenedso long ago. We will learn our times tablesall the way to twelve,perhaps Britain will leave Europeand we will back to pounds, shillingsand pence,so this makes sense. Dates, and places and versewill be drummed into ustil we are a nation of parrotsno ability to think, or act;automatons for a robotic space age. What do they know that theyare not telling us?

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Dressed up, sealed in, the world excluded,
Princes of the Church, secluded;
I suppose they sit in chapel
arguing who's fit to grapple
with corruption, who can handle
uppity women, priestly scandal;
but God knows how they'll really pick
a Pope to follow Benedict.
Spin the chalice, pass the dalmatic
musical statues, hunt the relic,
pin the tail on the priceless fresco,
all-in combat roller-disco?
Or maybe they'll decide it's better
to go for the chap with the biggest biretta.
Eventually, they'll pick some bloke
and never let on what they smoke.

Tuesday, 19 March 2013

queen signs charter to encourage equalitygovernment sign welfare reform billcitizens organise nationwide demonstrationchurch urges war on hypocrisyTheresa May for PMthe poor are paying off the national debtwhile the tories pay off the rich

Sunday, 17 March 2013

On Monday Philip Johnson showed us the irony of the situation that "The Desert Rats" find themselves in 'Cardboard Boxes'. They may well be back to playing in boxes as they used to as children. Luigi Pagano in 'Decision Time' also showed us some of the irony of the sutation that The Falklands Islands find themselves in being such a far-flung piece of the UK.
In Thursday's '12 Men are Gone Today' David Mellor brought a sobering statistic to our notice which is the sort of thing that Poetry24 is so good at.
David Subacchi's poem 'Slipping Away' gave a well considered view at what may be going on inside the head of the recently retired Pope.
While Clodagh Beresford Dunne gave us all a feeling for how the election of the new Pope feels to his congregation in 'Pope'.We also received 'foreword to spring' by Philip Johnson and thought that we would include in the Sunday review for us all to feel some Springtime.Have a good week.

foreword to spring

last week we dared take picnic lunchesas the sun had warmth which lingereda little longer into the evening

flowers in bud lit a smile on your face which this morning upturned how some

Clodagh Beresford Dunne lives in Waterford. She writes poetry, plays and short fiction. She is the recipient of a number of awards and her poems have appeared in The Stinging Fly, The Moth and Southword - she is presently compiling her first collection of poetry.

David was born in Liverpool in 1964. He left school with nothing, rummaged around various dead end jobs, then back to college and uni. In his 20s he first discovered poetry, starting writing and performing and has done so ever since. He has lived on the Wirral for the past 8 years.

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

There is quite an argy-bargygoing on in the South Atlanticand although we have two wooersthat affair is not romantic.On one side, the Argentineshave for ages been insistentthat they own the Falkland Islesbut the Brits are resistantand rebuff the foreign claim.The first sight, it’s almost cert,in the year sixteen-hundred,was by mariner de Weert.One can argue that the islandswere discovered by the Dutchbut the link is very tenuousand does not amount to much.Now president de Kirchnerstakes new claims to Port Stanleyand although she’s a womanher demands are rather manly.This issue, most contentious,should be sorted once for all;the archipelago’s inhabitantsgo, tomorrow, to the polls.Yet I have got this gut feelingthat the debate will run and runand there won’t be a resolutionwhen all is said and done.

Sunday, 10 March 2013

Here in Cornwall the first signs of spring are to be seen in the fields and hedgerows: splashes of brilliant yellow have been daubed along the roadside and patches of purple and white have appeared in our waking gardens where the early-flowering crocuses have popped up their heads. After a long and cold, yet predominantly wet, winter without even the relief of of a little snow, this incipient explosion of life and colour has been more than welcome. Everywhere around us are the signs and augurs of the blossoming of new life and new hope.

Not so, with our poems, however: here at Poetry24 it has been a bleak and solemn week. Amy Barry took the lead with her harrowing and heart-rending response to the plight of the children of Syria, those innocents who are obliged to endure: 'Muffled, strangled cries/ Maggots on decomposed bodies,/ severed heads and limbs' because they have 'little choice'. Later in the week, on Thursday, Janine Booth brought a similar mood closer to home. Her poem, 'A Homeless Man Dies', reminded us that cruelty and culpability are alive and well in the affluent West. Like the children of Syria, 'Daniel deserved to survive'. The system, however, does not ' because 'Capitalism kills'.

Wednesday's poem was 'Fell Asleep at Noon' by regular, Noel Loftus. The poem is the author's response to the injustice of that same, fallible system, a system which, in this case, and I quote the author, obliges the Irish taxpayer to 'pick up the tab' for some banks - and also some individuals - who 'gambled on a grand scale'. This poem delights with some felicitous word choices and delicious, rolling rhythms. Appreciate, for example, the deftness of the alliteration in 'Fridge looms into view/Forehead rests of freezing things' and the precise writing of 'A curious collision scythed/ through a humbled mind,/ saw a cruet in the thin hands of a boy'.

Friday's poem also came to us from Ireland, this time from Thomas Martin whose baldly-stated Recession is, or it seems to me, very much to the point. Because it is short - and because, as an editor, I can - I am going to reproduce it here in full. Thank you, Thomas for this timely warning. Let us hope that, in the interests of humanity, we are all able to hear it and take it to heart.

They have us where they want us, lads:Public against privateWaged against unwaged Generation against generationMen against womenUrban against ruralNational against immigrantFrontline against rearguardThey have us where they want us.And we have them -In our sights.

Finally, on Saturday, we were back to Syria, this time to the story of the Syrian refugee who, having reached the age of one hundred and five, told a war correspondent that:

'she wants to die.

Not because she is too old,

that’s not the reason why.

Her wish is not a whim

but a sign of desperation.

She has witnessed the futile

destruction of her nation,

the bombing, the shooting

from both warring sides,

she’s seen the consequencesof martyrs’ suicides'.

If you have not already read this powerful poem by Luigi Pagana, I suggest that you click on the link immediately. Though I am nowhere near this lady's age, I am no spring cuckoo either, and I have to say that, in the current climate, even in the face of the present onslaught of daffodils and crocuses, I, too, have felt something of her weariness, her desire to simply turn her face to the wall and countenance no more: no more exploitation, no more cruelty, no more bloodshed and despair. We all say that we want to end these evils but how do we make it happen?

That's all from me this week - except to leave you with these lines from Bill:

Homeless man dies frozen on doorstep of empty bungalowBoards on windows and lock on doorStanding between himAnd the meagre shelter that could have saved himNo bed, no luxury, no comfortBut at least a barrier between him and the murderous coldHomeless man dies frozen on doorstep of empty bungalow

Homeless man dies frozen on doorstep of empty bungalowA person without a homeDies on the steps ofA home without a personIn what sort of irrational system does that happen?Someone 'owned' the empty homeAnd possession is not just nine-tenths of the lawBut the iron law that says you can't come inEven if it makes the difference between life and deathHomeless man dies frozen on doorstep of empty bungalow

Homeless man dies frozen on doorstep of empty bungalowIt was not just the temperature that killed DanielIt was the systemProperty is not just theftIt is also murderDaniel deserved to surviveBut this system does notCapitalism killsHomeless man dies frozen on doorstep of empty bungalow

Age made work superfluous.What a useless word.A curious collision scythedthrough a humbled mind,saw a cruet in the thin hands of a boy. This house is creaking cold and old andfloorboards smell of dust.Oil has work to do.Teacher took our babies years.

Three pm on Monday, they have will to runand run and bless them on their way.And we would do that too if we had will.Hid. Safe. Spouse has life beyond us,is soothing mental friendwhose partner, they said, leaped (hunting sanity once craved).

Decades slipped away when assesbray was eight miles loudacross two thousand years.Teacher took our children,left back a mighty task.

A mirror in the hallwayis the stranger who resides here.Hello mister always can,and mister never could.How are you our brother, sister, how are you, yourself.

Washing cycles to its end.This silence is resounding, pounding.Could we begin again.

Sunday, 3 March 2013

We started the week with "Jack's Alright" by Laura Taylor which pretty conclusively shows that things with Jack are decidedly not right. There is a lot in this poem that is arrow-straight into the modern human condition.
Haikus made a welcome appearance at Poetry24 from Máire Morrissey-Cummins. I love these small, dense poems about such a wretched episode.
The Magdalene story was revisited by Jessica Traynor in 'An Education in Silence" on Wednesday. We can take some hope from such good poems arising out of such terrible times
On Thursday Barbara Gabriel's poem 'Step on a Crack' highlighted the sex-trade in young girls through the example of Latino girls being traded. Poetry does not get much more hard-hitting than this and we are honoured to be able to publish this poem.John Saunders' 'Sacrifice' told simply, yet powerfully, of the decision made by Burmese monks to burn themselves to death as a political process. There is great dignity in this poem and great bravery.Caroline Hurley's poem 'Collectable Things' pointed out the rather abysmal record that we have as stewards of the environment and also compared it to our personal relationships.
Well it was a challenging week of poetry that confronts us with the less stellar sides of our natures. As such it performs a vital task if it can keep us honest. As I mentioned there is a a fair amount of the better sides of our natures on display from the poets, themselves. Thanks very much to everyone who contributed and please keep it up. We always need more submissions. Have a good week.

Saturday, 2 March 2013

Silently, invisibly, a gentle wind glances off the waysof things that seem filled with the intent to be watchedand weighed; the disasters or crimes, set by places and by times,at war with what can’t be compelled and is often lost.

Conquistadors compounded cultural estates.Darwin, the Dutch, Wallace & Co, helped themselveson islands explored. They reached out and effortlesslywrung the necks of fearless birds as though plucking apples;as if the trust of the predator-free creatures was beggingto be exploited and to be thanked with extinction.

Renaissance men libelled the gristly dodo, calling them disgusting,lazy-arsed beasts while guzzling them down to the last one.For state bounty, the Tasmanian tiger, reigning over the food-chain,was hunted from its livelihood; the final thylacine expired asthe Nazi holocaust gained ground. In this twenty-first century,remaining rhinos risk carnage by poachers hacking their cornucopian hornsthat leaven medical brews, gild weapons and ornamental figaries.

Evidence they existed; is that enough to palliate the loneliness ofhuman spirit first prognosticated after mass buffalo slaughters?Like seeds that need to be constantly watered and lit before sharingtheir natures, conditions must be attended to conserve companion species;in the same way that love, once neglected and bled, can degenerateto seem like a dead shell, just a punishable collectable thing.

Caroline's poems have previously appeared in Poetry24 and they have also been published in The Electric Acorn and threemonkeysonline.com. Clebran.org featured a chapter from her novel and some flash fiction. Her current focus is on young adult fiction and screenwriting. She lives near an Irish bird reserve.

John Saunders' First Collection After the Accident was published in 2010 by Lapwing Publications, Belfast. His second full collection Chance is available is due for publication in March 2013 by New Binary Press